
, AsZmL-S ../.-^-V **>£&>•>„ A 



JO 










v *^ .'^fe-Nu < c °^<Sfe-'°°*b ^ 






. ^0 



> K* 



V .«> 



5°«* ;i 



* ^ v 



V '•'' 00 ~* ' 



►' ^ 












-o*.-^,*o 1 ^ > -«°- 



* ^ 



<T » 




4 






^^ 








,**< 






w 










& V 6 o«., ^ 



l*" • 



n>v* 







A w . "<» 



**0« 



s5°^ : 



♦ -? o_ 




* % o---. % 










& 




Y »!••-, 



o « 






V ^ ^ 









+*0« 



^■o< 






P> '.To 9 ^o- 






SPEECH 



HON. CHARLES R. TRAIN, 

OF MASSACHUSETTS, 



HERESY OF THE DOCTRINE OF 
STATE RIGHTS. 



DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, MAT 24, 1862. 



The House having under consideration the bills to confiscate the property and free from servitude 
the slaves of rebels, Mr. TRAIN said : 

Mr. Speaker : It is impossible for me to approach the great question before us in 
any spirit of vindictiveness, nor does it appear to me to be proper to legislate with 
any such feelings. In surveying the condition of the country, we shall see enough 
of misery and distress to temper our indignation with sorrow. Doubtless the dis- 
tress has been unequally distributed, and many have suffered who were innocent 
while many have escaped who were guilty. 'Such is the lot of humanity. One 
may count the leaders in this giant insurrection upon their fingers. These men 
should be visited with condign punishment, and I am prepared to vote for any mea- 
sure to this effect I believe it will be judicious, too, to enact such a law a's will 
serve to deter men who have fortunes at stake from continuing in arms now, or tak- 
ing them up again in the future ; but I dissent from those who think that such a con- 
fiscation act should be passed as will impoverish the families of rebels and punish 
them indiscriminately ; nor do I believe that the Treasury of the United States 
would be replenished from this source, for it would probably cost quite as much to 
reduce the property of the rebels to the possession of the Government as the value 
of the property itself. Any one who has examined our history during and after the 
close of the Revolution, will be satisfied that if all constitutional doubts could be 
withdrawn, we can have now no assurance that this remedy could be applied 
with any satisfactory consequences. In the language of another: "Confiscation 
in a legal and technical sense, is attended with difficulties. It was not resorted to 
at all in case of the original proprietors of our soil, whose titles were suspended if 
not extinguished, by a more summary .process. It was applied pretty largely to 
the Tories of the Revolution, but the process was tedious, and the results not alto 
gether satisfactory. If the rebels, like the Tories, should colonize them and their 
heirs with them, it would be relieved of some of its difficulties, but would still be a 
sore one to professional conveyancers, who could hardly be reconciled to the salva- 
tion of the country at the expense of serious informalities in the title of real estate " 

But apart from this consideration, I do not like this mode of punishment and' I 
distrust its efficiency for any good end. To punish a whole body of people 'for the 
madness to which they have been incited by long and studied purpose on the part 
of a band of political conspirators who have inflamed their passions with the red 
tal of imaginary wrongs, and turned their hearts against a Government so mild and 
lenient that they have scarcely felt its rule, would be, in my judgment neither no 
litically wise nor substantially just. The greatness of the nation should be shown 
by its magnanimity as well as its power. The people are not versed in law and 



2 






our form of Government is complex; they have been confused and perplexed 
with the antagonistic requirements of the State and Federal Governments. 

Among the numerous bills which have been introduced in this and the other 
House for the punishment of treason, several of them are designed to abolish slavery, 
while few of thorn show this either in the title or preamble. The honorable chair- 
man of the Committee of Ways and Means boldly marches forward to this direct 
object, and asserts that the longer continuance of the system is incompatible with 
peace. This may be true to some extent; but believing that this rebellion has 
struck the death-knell of the institution, I will not seek its overthrow by uncon- 
stitutional and therefore unjust meaus. 

It is needless for me to say that I hate, and until now have feared, the institution 
of slavery; but, much as I detest the system, I cannot agree that it shall be made 
responsible for all the evils which afflict the nation. And it seems to me that those 
gentlemen who can see no other element of discord than this in the country are 
blind to the occurrences of the past or ignorant of the political history of the repub- 
lic. If slavery had never existed, the nullification theories of South Carolina would 
have resulted in rebellion ; and certainly it will be conceded that the attempt to 
overthrow this Goveroment was begun and instigated by that portion of the StalW 
which had least to complain of in reference to any interference with their domesfl 
concerns. The pernicious politic^ tenets taught in t;he State-rights schools of t'.' - 
Sputh have borne legitimate fruit in this rebellion, and the people of this uatict 
will learn henceforth that their paramount obedience is due — where alone it can \ 
enforced — to the United States of America; they will learn by this a lesson whiq 
will impress itself more thoroughly upon their minds than by all they have gathere 
from the ingenious political essays of Virginia or Massachusetts statesmen. In ordei 
to apply a proper remedy, we should not deceive ourselves as to the nature of th- 
disease. The constant cry of "invasion," the question asked so often and with suci 
emphasis by the insurgents, and, no doubt, in most cases with sincerity, "whathav. 
you come here for?" sufficiently attests that the true character of this Government 
has yet to be learned by very many of its citizens. The unity of the Republic has 
been lost sight of or pushed aside by the nearer presence of the State government. 

As a rule, the people of our country are law-abiding. They believe that a ma- 
jority, acting in a legislative capacity, under constitutional restrictions, can do 
almost anything, while a class of politicians, both North and South, have avowed 
the doctrine that a constitutional convention can do and Undo all : *s at will. 
This was held in Massachusetts as late as 1853, and nothing but the intelligence of . 
her people, and the fact that they could not be excited by artful harangues which 
have deluded our brethren of the South, prevented the an e'ndment of her funda- 
mental law in an unconstitutional way and in violation of the lights of minorities. 
Very undefined notions prevail among us with regard to the powers of such a con- 
vention, which powers are exhausted, in truth, after the first convention has set the 
machine of government in motion, and also upon the matte ra of so 1 ignty and 
allegiance. 

According to my views of the structure of our Governm. arei rightly 

speaking, no such correlative attributes as sovereignty and allegiance in the internal 
relations of this Republic. We are citizens, not subjects, and we owe no allegiance 
anywhere, but simply obedience to our fixed and written constitutions and the laws 
passed in pursuance of them. Our Government is founded upon the theory that all 
power is originally derived from the people, and that even their power has its lim- 
itations. The people acting at the outset through the machinery of conventions, 
established certain fundamental principles which were to govern and restrict subse- 
quent legislation, and any acts of the legislatures depaiting from this so constituted 
authority are of no binding effect. This division of power is plainly marked in the 
constitutions of the several States and in that of the United States. 

It is this pestilent doctrine of State rights, in my judgment, and the consequent 
doctrine that a constitutional convention may do all things at will, a ith the cow- 
ardice of loyal men in some of the slave States, which has brought upon us this re- 
bellion. For example, I believe no fact is capable of plainer proof (and if I am 
mistaken 1 will thank any of her delegation present to correct me) than that the 
convention of Virginia usurped powers not conferred upon it, and passed what was 
called an ordinance of secession in defiance of the expressed will of a majority of 
her people, Of course, the first step taken, it was not so difiicuit to keep up a 
forced unanimity thereafter with th impassioned cries of "invasion," and the an- 
gry exclamation of "what do you come here for?" But the people of Virginia 
elected a convention of Union men, and forbade them taking any step, without sub- 

m ft. »» 



3 



uiitting the 
General " 



^niondee^tte to that seee8 f. on * (I see that one Geore-e W P * n " 

tuodred ffiHJorifcv feS conven . t,wn ^om the city of iSSrff fc? ' e,e , cted a * 

own bef.re j" a o b °' n ] and ""'^red, and to which h nw n t ., 8ee, ! , « the fla £ 
cannot forbear repeating them : ele ' ch * n g»g but a single word, 



An,i .h'mS ;,,;", . , ::r s ;: ,It ''r'v'^ 

wh.-. u„,.r i„ ,.,.,'"' '"r, ,ead 

T^'liiniellii", ' illj ( d, , ni 

Not so had those VX v:is s: ""'" ll, >' t '- 
The chiefs wlnm . I " y '-""''i-rw!, 
Their phalanx marsl ,i T" ' '',"" >!,lm bered, 
Whose iMtlw.-u-l/; x ■;.'-, ."n "' e .l ,hli ». 

The very g ale their nameS ffied sighing; 



The -waters murmured of their name ; 
The woods were peopled with their fame; 
The silent pillar, lone and gray, 
Claimed kindred with their sacred clay; 
Their spirits wrapped the dusky mountain, 
Their memon sparkled o'er the fountain; 
The meanest rill, the mightiest river, 
Rolled mingling with their fame forever. 
Despite of evefv voke she bears. 
That land is glory's still, and theirs! 



Petri 



taken 
when 
sutel 



Ay, and as the renown of Greece is to be found in the learning of Athens and the 
durance of Sparta, in her heroes and statesmen, her Cimon, and Pet tele and 
9 mosthenes, so does the glory of Virginia belong to her Washing on a, d the 
Henrys, and Marshalls, and Pendletons. and Randolphs of her earlier and better 
daU; and when this wretched Breckinridge uprising shall have passed away and 
} J its place in. history beside the whiskey insurrection and Shays rebel W and 
, its instigators shall have been consigned to that ignominy and oblivion which 
„Jv awaits them, the names I have cited will still survive," exempt from muta- 
bility and decay," to illustrate the true glory of the Old Dominion. 

Mr Sneaker the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions of 1*798, with the latmiae 
ass^ u.d' by ti'em to Stfte supremacy, have! done their work. They were ongin*H| 
b ou,ht forward, I believe, with no higher motive than to ri°^J"**g££ 
tration of John Adams; but the germ of dissolution then planted h« been indus- 
triously nursed by designing nun and inborn traitors until now the country M 
taping the bitte/ fruit Slavery has added its influence w^TS^ifl 
rebellion, and a most potent and sinful one. It isan unmiturat ed cur se * 
deadly evil; but this rebellion would have occurred without it. When _ > ou ada 
the workings of slavery to the doctrines 1 have alluded to, every hour brings 
tou w hi d tning speed to practical secession. Slavery debases every white per- 
£" wit h which incomes in contact, socially and politically. It creates a , ifferenee 
of classes incompatible with a republican form of government ; it make, « he mas- 
ter moatient of control, and insubordinate as a citizen ot the State; it compels 
he 3e to hold a large amount of land to make slavery profitable; it crea^J 
anded aristocracy, who, living upon the labor of others, learn to look ^wn ^ 
contempt upon those who regard labor as honorable ; and finally it u ea *e a _cu» 
of poo.' whites, ignorant and degraded as the blacks; these were eaih inflamed to 

^my^^^ 

immediate extinction by emancipation, either by act of Congress^ unde what is 
termed the "war power," or the power ot self-preservation tbers seek t » e ame 
res It by confiscation, so called ; and this has been received with g^J££™ 
f Z Stages, and by none more so than by Massachusetts, mot especiaflj be « 




would deal with this matter in a practical and summary way ^^rever tie 



townsman. After the battle of Bunker Hill, Washington wrote to the President of 
Congress in this wise : 

" It ha« been represented to me that the free negroes who have served in this army are very much 
dissatisfied at being disbanded. As it is to be apprehended that tb.-y may seek employ m the min- 
isterial armv I have presumed to depart from the resolution respee inirthem. and have given license 
for their being enlisted. If this is disapproved of by Congress I will put a stop to it. 

Washington's biographer (see Sparks, vol. 3, page 218) makes this note on the 
passage : 

" At a meeting of the sener.il officers previously to the arrival of the committee from Congress in 
camp, it was unanimously resolve,!, that it was not expedient to enlist slaves in the new army and 
by a Iarce maVrir. negroes of everv description wereexcluded from enlistment. Y\ hen thesubject 
Was referred to the committee in conference, this decision was not confirmed In regard Itp free 
negroes, however, the resolve was not adhered to, and probably lor the reason here mentioned by 
General Washington. Many black soldiers were in the service during all stages of the war. 

For example, a whole battalion was raised in Rhode Island. Another was brought 
by our French allies from St. Domingo, and fought in the bloodiest battle of the 
Revolution at Savannah. It afterwards achieved distinction fighting against the 
British in its own country. Though Congress thus yielded to Rutledge, there seems 
to have been no doubt on the part of the best judges that the blacks made good 
soldiers. Henry Laurens wrote to Washington, March 1(5, 1779: 

"Had we arms for three thousand such black men as I could select in Carolina, I should have no 
doubt of success in driving the British out of Georgia, and subduing East Florida before the end of 
July." 

Washington replied : 

« The policy of our arming slaves is, in my opinion, a moot point, unless the enemy set the ex- 
ample. For should we begin to form battalions of them. I have not the smallest doubt, it the war 
is to be prosecuted, of their following us in it, and justifxing the measure upon our own ground 
The contest then must be, who can arm fastest. And where are our arms'.' Lestdes, I am no 
clear that a discrimination will not render slavery more irksome to those who remain in it. Mosi 
of the good and evil things of this life are judged of by comparison ; and I fear a comparison in 
this case will be productive of much discontent in those who are held in servitude, but as this 
is a subject that has never employed much of my thoughts, these are no more than the first crude 
ideas that have struck me on this occasion." 

Afterwards, in 1782, when Colonel John Laurens complained to Washington that 
that the Legislature of South Carolina had refused to give him leave to raise "a 
regiment of black levies," the latter spoke of the failure as due to the fact that the 
spirit of freedom had subsided, and every selfish passion had taken its place, and 
predicted that the zealous colonel would have no better success in Georgia. Can 
there be any doubt what the Father of his Country would do in the present, state of 
facts? Not one of the facts which sustained his "crude ideas" against arming the 
enslaved blacks in 1779 now exists, save on the side of the secessionits, who have 
"set the example," and thus removed the only one which could exist on our side. 
We can arm faster than they, and the more discontented their or our doing so makes 
the remaining slaves, the better for us. 

Mr. Speaker, I have selected Virginia as the chief subject of my comments because, 
although the hotter blood of South -Carolina led off in this rebellion, the pestilent 
dogmas of the political school of Virginia, from whose loins have sprung so many 
of the southern States, have had a potent agency in bringing on the present deplora- 
ble condition of the country. Virginia, as I have said undertook in her convention 
to resume her sovereignty, but, in truth, she never had any sovereignty to resume; 
in company with others of the original thirteen colonies, she declared her indepen- 
dence of Great Britain, and this declaration was not the sole act of Virginia, but 
the united act of her and her sister colonies; separately and alone — none of them 
could have coped with the power of England ; but then, as now, the strength of the 
Republic which they inaugurated Vas in Union. The Confederation which was first 
made was only abandoned for a firmer and closer Union, and to this Union I am 
bound by ties' as strong as any which can bind a citizen to his country. Ireland 
may have a right tin sever her association with Great Britain; Poland, triparted 
Poland, might rightly, if she could, reassert her nationality, but Virginia, which 
never was independent, had no right and no just cause, moral or political, to endeavor 
the destruction of the Government which she was so largely instrumental in estab- 
lishing. The Farewell Address of her venerated Washington contained, among the 
rest of its disregarded injunctions, these memorable words — "client, your national 
Union." 

The student of our history as a nation does not need to be reminded that, at the 



outset of our career, there were radical political differences between Washington 
and Jefferson; the latter was tinctured with the French philpaOphv prevailing at 
his time, which had a powerful advocate in the infidel Paine; and, acccording to 

tneir views, there could be no such thing as a permanent system of law for social 
government, but each succeeding generation was to make a new code to suit the 
shifting relations of men and things. There was, in their view, no rock of funda- 
mental law but only the quicksands of never-ending revolution. I was educated 
in the school or \* ashington. I believe in the sanctity of compacts, the majesty of 
law, and the perpetuity of principles. 

Having thus set forth the bias of my feelings and prejudices, if such they be, it 
will hardly be expected that 1 should join in any scheme for reaching the destruction 
of slavery by violating the obligations of the Constitution. Our fathers were quite 
as wise, and certainly as honest as we are; they believed in their zeal for universal 
liberty, that they had provided for the ultimate and not far distant extinction of 
slavery, riie chance and change of commerce and the arts have baffled their an- 
ticipations thua far; but the madness of southern politicians, which has led them to 
rush tneir system against the bosses of the buckler of freedom is likely to brim* 
about that end which they so ardently desired. Satisfied in my own mind that the 
system or slavery is now at length in a condition to be suppliant, and no longer a 
dictator, I am content, to abide the issue of events. 

From the disunionists of the North, who find in the rebellion an excuse for over- 
throwing the plainest constitutional provisions, I turn to the loyal men of the bor- 
der States, and say: gentlemen, what do you advise? You see that slavery is de- 
moralized as a system, and that they who have made it a stalking-horse for party, 
have ruined it pecuniarily. What shall we do? The problem of how-to deal with four 
millions of human beings in your midst, is one which concerns you more nearly than 
those whom I represent ;-but my constituents are law-abiding, and with no good 
feeling for slaveholders, as such, they will yet stand by the contract of their fathers. 
Ihey are for the good old rule of their English ancestors— fair play ; and they will 
not strike you, now that you are down ; on the coutrary, they regard the loyal men 
of slave States as having peculiar claims to be heard and regarded in this civil war. 
Ihey agree with you that law, and not temporary majorities of political parties, is 
the true conservation of this Republic. They believed, with you, that the doctrine 
of nullification, which has ripened into secession, was effectually put to rest so far 
as human reason could do this, by the renowned reply of the great Massachusetts 
statesman to the South Carolina Senator— Hayne; and they know, for they are a 
reading people, that a judicial decision of the highest court of South Carolina has 
declared that the paramount allegiance of her citizens is due not to the State, but to 
the United States. ( Vide 4 Hill's S. C. Reports.) All this they know, and they are 
sensible enough, also to appreciate the true causes of this rebellior.. They say to you, 
whatever of sin there was in the original indulgence of the system of African servi- 
tude , their fathers bore equally with yours, and they are willing to join you in sha- 
king off the incubus from the shoulders of the Republic; but they will not do this 
thing in the spnit which has actuated self-styled reformers, in denouncing the cov- 
enant of their fathers with yours; they will approach the great question with 
kindness and forbearance, and while they will set their faces as flint against the 
further extension of slavery, they will aid you, whenever you are ready to move 
in getting rid of the system in your midst. 

It may be too soon to mark out the final course to be pursued in restoring the for- 
mer relations of the States, but I am happy to believe, that whenever the time 
comes when we can take counsel together again, we shall be able to arrange our 
difficulties without the intervention of those who have been chiefly instrumental in 
creating them. So long as the pestilent heresy of State sovereignty is taught and 
practiced upon, we never can hope for permanent peace, for whether it be slavery 
or the tariff, religion or infidelity, there will always be a pretext for resorting to this 
easy method of wreaking party vengeance. The ultraists of both sections made 
this war, but they have not fought it; philanthropists and philosophers set the peo- 
ple by the ears, but they do not often participate actively in the contest which they 
provoke. Let them stand back now, and suffer the soldiers of the Union to make 
the terms of the amnesty. 

Finally, I stand upon the proclamation of the President of the United States, 
whose wisdom and sagacity have made him the strongest man in the hearts of the 
American people that now lives. 1 say to my friends of the border States that they 
have never, in my judgment, looked at this matter as they should have done. I 
say to Missouri, to Virginia, to Maryland, to Tennessee, planting myself upon the 



policy of the Administration, "you cannot, if you would, be blind to the signs of 
the times. I beg of you a calm and enlarged consideration of them, ranging, if it 
may be, far above personal and partisan politics. This proposal makes common 
car.se for a common object, casting no reproaches upon any. it, acts not the Phari- 
see. The change it contemplates would come gently as the dews of heaven, not 
rending or wrecking anything. Will you not embrace it? So much good has not 
been done by one effort in all past time, as in the proi -' it is your high 

privilege to do May the vast future qot have to lament, that you Lave neglected 
it." You cannot expect that our people will fight this war and allow the rebel 
States to inaugurate a system of guerrilla warfare, and not turn around and use 
every means which the God of nature has put into our power to rebuke it. Gov- 
ernor Letcher ha3 i§sued a proclamation calling out guerrilla parties to shoo down 
our pickets. _ T tell you when that system is inaugurated, we will inaugurate a sys- 
tem which will put arms into the hands of every black man who is able to tire a mus- 
ket ; and the rule will then he, let the strongest prevail; and the institution of sla- 
very must stand back. 

Mr. BROW, of Virginia. Most that my friend, as I shall call him, has said, 
meets my approbation ; but as he saw proper, in his opening remarks, to sav that 
the rebellion was occasioned in part by the cowardice of the men of the border 
States, I desire to remind him that at least there is an exception. When, in the 
ctfnvjfl B5on of Virginia, those seventy-eight votes against fifty-five passed the ordi- 
nance of secessK n. the delegates from Western Virginia seceded from Richmond and 
returned, home. They called upon their constituents to assemble and. make common 
cause in resisting the movement of Virginia to join the southern confederacy. The 
people respon. ed most heartily to the call; and although we numbsred less than 
three hundred tboi -and inhabitants, we resolved that we would meet not only Vir- 
ginia, but that we would meet the whole southern confederacy in conflict, if this 
Government did not interfere and assist us. So far as the Governmenl gave any in- 
dication of the ground it would occupy, it was given by Mr. Buchanan, who declared 
that this Government had no power to use coercive measures; and we had no assu- 
rance whatever that this Government would back us up in our efforts, and yet we 
bid defiance to the seceders of Virginia and the southern disorganizers, and we 
arm ed "' : "••' ll old tire arms as we could gather in our community. We 

organized and were ready for the fight before the three-months volunteers had 
organized. Our men of Western Virginia, aided by some three or (our hundred 
men from Pennsylvania, took Grafton, and drove the southern troops from the town 
before General Kelly with the three months men came there. 

Mr. TRAIN. We know that the convention of Virginia, with a majority of Union 
men, passed a secesMon ordinance. That is the point. 

Mr. BROWN, of Virginia. I am not Bpeaking of Eastern Virginia at all. I am 
speaking of that portion of Virginia that organized, at the hazard of their lives 
and fortunes, to meet this southern organization. 1 do not desire to hear the name 
ol coward applied to that noble band. 

Mr. TRAIN, i undertake to say that never was such moral cowardice exhibited 
as was exhibited by the Union men of Virginia who went into that convention. 

Mr. BROW N, vt \ n-mia. My dear sir, you do not understand. 

Mr. TRAIN. I want to understand. 

Mr. BROWN, of Virginia. The true Union men were only fifty-odd, and they 
could not defeat the ordinance. J 

Mr. TRAIN. How did it happen that they allowed the act to pass, when they 
went there in a large majority? 

ordeal BR ^ WN ' ° f 7ir ^ nia ' There were on] 5 some fift J tha1 P asse d through the 



1. Towers & Co., printers, corner Louisiana avenue and Sixth street. 



m 



% 



weo 





'W 



•* .•«*. w .^^ v** .% 



^9 



v^*\ •■?TO-\**'% 



*♦- 










W 



%<** " 






A*** 













l: **o< 



r oV 5 



^X v€M& .J 1 



,4<fc 






.<V • t • o. V 









W 












. ,0*,.r^..*o o > * v ..Sjt>.V ,0*...-..*o o J 







•^.o* 
















4* 















.s 







i? • V 













c v ; 



V .«> 



r 




» ^ • 







■.V 







k* A'' V* :®S&: V** •» ^ 

*'^. © 



V <F % • 












.<* S 



&++ 



> kV 









o *0 t*. »' « 










\ \W/ /"\ •^J^* ** v \ -flK' /%. 

:% % rP* ..!«•• % .** .•J*!:* % rP* >1^% 



^ < 



o j " « 



jr. ^ 




















%/ 
















^°^ 








^°^ 











v^ 1 




>9 



















v o^ 







^0^ 



«5°^ *. 



o°V-*-*< 




' ^ c 



A^ --- O. 







.^v -. 



1* * 



■o v t 



^d« 






